Every now and then the papers report that another preacher has declared for the theater, dancing, card playing and other kindred things. We can but
wonder why such men stay in the church and pulpit who have drifted so
far from spirituality and true holiness. If they have become sinful why
not go back at once to their crowd? Why try to bring the world into the
church to suit their depraved and backslidden tastes. If they prefer to be
degenerated instead of regenerated, and walk with men instead of God, let
them go to their own place, as Judas did to his.

There is a great multitude of Christians in the land who cannot be
persuaded that Jesus would attend a theater, a dance ball or a card playing
party; and they want to be like Him in all things. Why should they forego
a heavenly example for a worldly standard because every now and then
some shorn Samson in broad cloth and beaver hat bids his congregation to
follow him instead of the immaculate cross-bearing Son of God.

Aesop tells of a fox that in some manner had the misfortune to lose his
tail. But being a fox and quite adroit in mental matters, he framed a fine
argument and glowing speech in praise and defense of a tailless body. He
urged it was cool to begin with, and such a restful deliverance from a
burden in that part of the physical frame. There was nothing to carry,
etc., etc. He then begged his brethren to cut off their caudal attachments
and enter into the like freedom and advantage which he enjoyed.

The foxes assembled in convention, listened gravely for a while; but as
they took in their unfortunate brothers bobbed off appearance, and noted
his agony in fly time, there was a general smile in the assembly, an
incredulous look in every eye, and a unanimous vote passed that they
would not part with that plumy appendage which a beneficent Providence
had bestowed upon them.

The moral of all this is that when a man loses his religious experience, and
gets spiritually sheared, denuded or bobbed off by the world or the devil,
at once his cry is heard in the land against the severity of church rules, and
pleading for what he calls toleration, broadness and liberty which is only
another name with him for license in the ways of worldliness and sin. He
has become a sinner and wants others to follow. He may have kept the
form of godliness, but has lost the power, and craves his brethren to be in
a like condition with himself.

The newspapers give him credit for being an advanced thinker, when he is
a retrograding doer. From being a Convert he became first a Divert! then a
Pervert, and is now a Subvert, posing as a teacher of ethics or morals, and
applauded by worldlings in and out of the church as a Reformer and a
kind of second John Wesley. But God will show him up at the Judgment
Day, and perhaps even here this side of the grave as a spiritual fraud and
humbug, a travesty on a Gospel Ambassador, and a downright backslider
in heart and life, and that too, all the while he was attitudinizing, in the
pulpit as a teacher and leader of immortal souls.